


Winging It

by Engineer104



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I think?, Slice of Life, They Race Them, paper airplanes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 23:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11884902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: Recipe for fun:1 notebook5 Paladins1 Princess1 Advisor7 paper airplanesOr, what happens when several Earth teenagers are lightyears away from home and have an entire notebook and a free day





	Winging It

**Author's Note:**

> You can assume this takes place sometime in Season 2. Or 1. I don't think it really matters
> 
> Also do Alteans even have paper??

Coran spent the free day walking about the Castle's empty hallways, pushing ancient, unpleasant memories from his mind. Instead he pictured the halls as he hoped they would one day be: full of life and activity, like they were millennia ago.

He found himself outside the Red Lion's hangar, somewhere his feet always seemed to take him without his permission. And then he spotted one of Allura's mice sprinting by in the opposite direction, a small crumpled white sheet in its mouth.

"Platt's at it again," Coran mused.

"Come back here!" Lance slid into view, barefoot except for his socks, chasing the mouse. "That's mine!" He swept past Coran without even acknowledging him.

Coran, curious about what, exactly, the mouse stole from him, followed at a quick walk.

The mouse led them in a merry chase all the way to the Green Lion's hangar, where Pidge worked at her makeshift lab bench, Hunk sitting nearby. They were in quiet conversation about possible improvements to the Yellow Lion, but they both jumped when Platt scurried up to offer the sheet to Pidge.

"You!" Lance said, pointing at the mouse.

Platt stared at him without remorse.

"Uh..." Pidge took the sheet and examined it. "I'm confused; why did Allura's mouse bring me a bad drawing of the Red Lion?"

"Give me that!" Lance snatched the sheet away. "And it is _not_ a bad drawing."

Coran, intrigued, approached to peak over his shoulder. It did appear to be a rather crude image of a Lion, its head too large and too rectangular, but how Pidge could tell it was intended to be the Red one was beyond him.

"How do you know it's the Red Lion?" Hunk asked Pidge. "It's not...colored."

Pidge snickered and pointed at a strange shape scribbled over the Red Lion's head. "Is that supposed to be a flame, Lance?" she wondered.

Lance scowled. "I'd like to see you do better," he said, snatching the sheet away.

"Where did you get paper anyway, Lance?" Hunk said. "I haven't seen any since we left Earth."

 _Paper?_ What was _paper_? Coran was about to ask, but then Lance raised a black rectangular object that looked like a thick tablet or pad, a loose-looking spring embedded on one edge.

"I found a notebook," Lance admitted.

Pidge's eyes widened behind her glasses. "Hey, that's mine!"

"Uh, yes. I found it in your backpack...which you left in the bridge!" he hurriedly added when Pidge looked like she was about to strike out.

"You went through my stuff?" Pidge said.

"Hey, it's not like I read your diary, unlike _someone else_ in this room!" Lance shot Hunk a glare.

Hunk raised his arms defensively. "Dude, that was ages ago," he said.

"Anyway, can I borrow this?" Lance asked as if Hunk hadn't spoken.

Pidge heaved a sigh then said, "Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Yes! Thanks, Pidge!"

Pidge rolled her eyes, then turned back to her work as if she was never interrupted. Platt, apparently satisfied with himself, climbed down from the desk and scurried out of the hangar.

Lance left, and Coran followed closely, intrigued by this 'notebook'. Behind him, he heard Hunk ask Pidge, "How come you never let _me_ borrow your stuff?"

"So what _is_ a notebook?" Coran wondered.

Lance glanced at him as he flipped through the notebook, which he now saw was filled with blank sheets like the one Platt had given Pidge. "A notebook is a..." Lance frowned, rubbing his chin. "It's a book filled with paper." He shrugged, offering it for Coran to see.

Coran took it and flipped through it. "And _this_ is paper?" He pinched a white sheet between two fingers, turning it to look at the other side.

"Uh, did Altea not have paper?" Lance asked.

"Hmm." Coran thought back to the histories he read, if any of the ancient technologies he learned of included _paper_. "Yes, I suppose we did, but even ten thousand years ago it was quite archaic."

Lance gave him a flat look, and Coran wondered if he offended his Earth sensibilities.

"And what do you use this paper notebook for?" Coran asked, returning the object to Lance. "Drawing?"

"Sure," he replied. "Drawing, writing, folding..."

"Folding?"

"Yeah," said Lance. He opened the notebook and tore a sheet out of it. "Hold this."

Coran took the notebook, tucking it under his arm as Lance 'folded' the sheet in his hands several times, until it made a small figurine of...

"A paper airplane!" Lance said, grinning. "I used to make these all the time when I got bored in class."

Airplanes? Altea had airplanes for travel within the planet's own atmosphere, though they had a more aerodynamic shape than this folded sheet of paper.

Lance pinched the bottom edge of the paper airplane between two fingers. He stood like he was angling himself to take a shot with his bayard and hefted the airplane like a dart, then he jerked his wrist, and the paper airplane shot out of his hand and sailed down the hall.

"Not bad," said Lance, crossing his arms and admiring its progress.

"Interesting," said Coran. The paper airplane reminded him of a child's craft toy, something to challenge the mind while building then engage the body while playing.

"Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to fold them," Lance explained as he jogged down the hall to retrieve the airplane, "but I prefer the classic."

"Classic what?"

They'd made it to the residential hall without either of them noticing, and Coran spotted Keith poking his head out of his bedroom door.

"Paper airplane," said Lance, showing it to him.

"Where'd you get the paper from?" Keith wondered, frowning.

Lance snatched the notebook back from underneath Coran's arm. "Pidge. Want a sheet?"

Keith held his hand out, and Lance tore a page out of the notebook and passed it to him. Then, a look of inspiration appeared on his face. "I have an idea!"

Keith crossed his arms. "Sounds dangerous. I'm in."

"You haven't heard it yet," Lance protested.

"Then tell me," said Keith, rolling his eyes.

Lance grinned, cradling his paper airplane in his hands. "Why don't we race?"

Keith's eyes fell on the airplane. "Seriously?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes!"

Surprisingly, he smiled. "All right, I'll race you." He was about to retreat into his room, presumably to fold his own paper airplane, but Lance stopped him.

"Not just me, hothead," he said. "Everyone on the ship! _Including_ Coran." He nodded his head to where Coran stood.

Keith seemed to notice him for the first time, waving when Coran offered him a toothy grin. "Even better."

\---

Coran always felt like the odd man out aboard the Castle.

He was the eldest, and from an entirely different era and place than the Paladins, their duties not the same as his. And though Princess Allura was just as Altean as he, and had lost just as much before their long sleep, he was still apart. He was a shoulder for her to cry on, an advisor when she needed one, a surrogate father when she sought reassurance. But he never felt comfortable burdening her with his own, similar needs, preferring instead to seek solace in distraction and throwing himself into his responsibilities to avoid drowning in memories and grief.

And this race that Lance proposed was a more than welcome distraction, especially since the shenanigans _included_ him this time.

It was a nice change, for once, participating in _making_ the mess rather than being the one to clean it up.

Lance first enlisted Pidge and Hunk, explaining his idea and giving them each a sheet of paper - which, though archaic, was marvelous to Coran for its versatility and potential - and telling them to meet in the residential hall in a varga. Neither of them looked pleased about being torn away from their work, but they both acquiesced easily.

They found Shiro on the training deck, close to completing the Level 5 simulation, when Lance asked if he'd be inclined to take a break. Shiro, never averse to spending time with the younger Paladins, agreed and accepted the sheet that Lance gave him.

Allura was on the bridge, rifling through transmissions and reports from their allies, planning their next move. This time, Coran and Lance together explained their objective.

"A race?" she said, sounding intrigued. "With these paper airplanes?" Lance allowed her to examine his own creation, and she looked at it from almost every angle. "This doesn't seem a very aerodynamic design."

Lance put on a dazzling smile - or, more likely, what he _thought_ was a dazzling smile - and suggested, "You can use any design you like, Princess. The only rule is that it has to be made of paper...and make it the furthest once you throw it of course."

"I see," said Allura, tapping her chin thoughtfully. She returned the airplane to Lance, then looked at him. "Coran, did we ever have 'paper' on Altea? I don't think I've ever heard of it."

"An old technology, Princess, even when my grandfather was a young man."

Allura smiled. "Of course," she said, "though I would love to participate, Lance."

Lance, once more looking insulted at the implication of his race's primitiveness, brightened and gave the princess a clean sheet torn from the notebook. "See you in a varga, Princess," he said, leading the way back out of the bridge.

Coran saluted Allura as they left, and she grinned at him, already murmuring to the mice about the best likely design.

"And now, Coran, my man, here's _yours_." Lance tore a fresh page from the notebook and passed it to him. "Fold wisely, and see you soon." Then he left, leaving Coran to contemplate his own airplane design.

Coran settled in the common room, a tray in his lap to provide a hard surface to evenly crease. He attempted a few different folds before changing his mind, then a few more. After considering how each fold built on those previous, he finally noticed that his sheet was entirely marred by creases.

"Oh, quiznak," he muttered. He had never been the best at aerodynamics.

\---

The prearranged moment came, and all seven of the Castle's personnel stood at one end of the residential hallway, admiring each others' handiwork. Lance's was still the 'classic' design he had shown off earlier, but some of the others' were similar if not entirely identical.

Pidge's, predictably, was the smallest and looked as if she had cut pieces off the page. Lance eyed it skeptically, opening his mouth as if to call her out on it before changing his mind. Hunk's, likewise, looked bulkier; it wasn't as _long_ as Lance's, but it had a greater wingspan.

Keith's was small like Pidge's but more streamlined, its folds neat and many; Coran supposed it would likely fly faster but not necessarily further than the others'. Shiro's looked a bit like a cross between Keith's and Hunk's, its center of mass more compact but its wings wide.

Allura's looked a lot like Lance's, but its center was shorter as if she had folded it an additional time.

Coran's airplane, however, was not an airplane at all.

"Uh, Coran?" said Hunk, pointing at the wadded up ball resting in his palm. "That's not an airplane."

"I am aware, Hunk," he said, unable to keep the defensiveness from his voice.

Hunk glanced at Lance, who shrugged and said, "I never said he couldn't make something that _wasn't_ an airplane."

"So who wins?" Keith wondered, narrowing his eyes to peer down the hall.

"The one whose plane travels furthest," Lance said.

Everyone nodded their agreement.

"All right!" said Lance. "Everyone on your mark!"

"What does that mean?" Allura hissed to Shiro.

"It means brace yourself to throw when he says 'go'," he told her.

Everyone struck a pose, poised to shoot a plane - or, in Coran's case, a ball - from their hand.

"Get set!" said Lance.

Everyone raised their hand, prepared...

"Go!"

Six paper airplanes and one paper ball soared from seven hands. First Pidge's small plane fell, then Keith's just a bit further (though it _did_ travel faster), followed by Hunk's monstrosity, Coran's pathetic little ball, Lance's 'classic' plane, Allura's smaller 'classic' plane, and Shiro's beast.

"Well," said Lance with a disappointed shrug, "at least I beat Keith."

Keith rolled his eyes. "That makes one thing."

Pidge scowled at her plane, while Hunk consolingly patted her shoulder. "I told you not to throw the rest of it away."

"It was too much paper!" she complained. "It was weighing it down!"

"You're supposed compensate with wingspan to generate lift, dude," explained Hunk.

Shiro and Allura admired their handiwork. "And this was your first time folding one?" Shiro asked the princess.

"Yes," said Allura, grinning as she bent down to pick up her airplane. "I think I shall save this! Perhaps next time one of the mice can ride it."

"Better luck next time, Coran," said Shiro.

"Only if Platt can ride mine," said Coran, smiling as he stroked his mustache.

Nearby, Coran thought he heard Platt squeak in fright.

**Author's Note:**

> So I like paper airplanes and I am an engineer but not like an aerospace engineer so um I apologize for the possibly inaccurate physics
> 
> (Also btw Lance has totally attempted drawing all the Lions; probably...and rereading this I realize I made an accidental Coran/Lance parallel and I am always down for those. hurray)
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed this silly little one-shot!!


End file.
